Recent Publications & Other Notes

I've had a couple of short fantasy stories published in recent months and I wanted to share the links to them here.

"Blackwood Dragon Blues" is a fantasy caper story with a dash of humor.

The streets were clear, and I got there ten minutes early. Martha was already waiting, the red trench coat Jimmy had said she would be wearing precisely as unsubtle as it sounded. "What's the job?" I asked as I sat. "What do you know about dragons?" I stood up. "Enough to know that we're done here." She reached up, touched my arm. "Even if it's a tiny dragon?"

It was published back in May at Electric Spec, marking my third appearance there after their previous publications of "Corinne's Song" and "Waiting On a Sunny Day". This also gave me 13 consecutive years of having credited publications at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

My second recent publication was "1-800-PROPHCY". I had fun writing this one.

Are you kept up at night, wondering about the meaning of a cryptic sentence uttered years before you were born? Do you find yourself constantly on the lookout for figures like “the man with twelve toes” or “the woman without a name?” Do you feel trapped, not by a dead-end job or burdensome student loans, but by Fate?

This story was published by Stupefying Stories and was another return appearance with a publisher for me. "Waters of Oblivion" was published in 2014 on another Stupefying Stories site.

A few other quick notes:

• I attended the North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC) this summer in Winnipeg, MB. The convention was fairly small but I participated in two well-attended panels, one on Data Privacy, and one on support for writers. I also gave a reading from my collection and had a couple of nice meals with some fellow members of a writing group.
• If you backed the 99 Tiny Terrors Kickstarter, word is that the print editions are being shipped now! I don't have mine yet, but I'm looking forward to receiving it soon. I've had a story accepted for the editor and publisher's followup 99 Fleeting Fantasies and there should be a Kickstarter for a print edition of that in the upcoming months.
• Finally, I'm planning to attend the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow and hope to be able to participate on panels and do a reading there. I'll know more about that next year.